A blog launched on the 41st anniversary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), the first pro-life organisation in the world, established on 11 January 1967. SPUC has been a leader in the educational and political battle against abortion, human embryo experimentation and euthanasia since then. I write this blog in my role as SPUC's chief executive, commenting on pro-life news, reflecting on pro-life issues and promoting SPUC's work.

i) notes that the significant majority of members of Lord Falconer’s Commission on Assisted Dying are publicly in favour of assisted suicide and euthanasia;
ii) supports the BMA’s stance in not giving evidence to the DEMOS Commission on Assisted Dying;
iii) questions the stated impartiality and independence of the Commission on Assisted Dying;
iv) requests the BMA Ethics Committee to make the Association’s opposition to assisted suicide and euthanasia clear to the Commission on Assisted Dying;
v) requests the BMJ editorial team to present a balanced and unbiased coverage of the Commission on Assisted Dying.

Not only has the 'commission' been stacked with assisted suicide supporters, it is part-funded by Sir Terry Pratchett, who is now the UK's most high-profile assisted suicide campaigner. This motion will help to counter-act the inevitable media propaganda in favour of legalising assisted suicide which will almost certainly follow once Lord Falconer's fake 'commission' issues its report.

Wednesday, 29 June 2011

Psychiatrists are wrong to downplay the impact of abortion on mental health, SPUC said today in our submission to the consultation on abortion and mental health being conducted by the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH). The NCCMH is composed of psychiatrists and psychologists. The NCCMH review, “Induced Abortion and Mental Health,” was issued in draft in April. Paul Tully, SPUC’s general secretary, told the media earlier today:

“We have been aware for many years of the long-term impact abortion can have on mental health, and the NCCMH review fails to treat the problem with the seriousness it deserves. Many important studies have been ignored by the reviewers. The concept of ‘wantedness’ is central to the NCCMH review, but it is an imprecise notion, and strongly affected by social reinforcement, support of the male partner and other factors.

“In our submission, we point to a number of studies that show that ‘wantedness’ is a loose and hazy notion. We are very concerned that the draft review suggests that abortion is not likely to lead to psychiatric harm on the assumption that an aborted pregnancy is unwanted. In our view, life is not that simple, and abortion is not safe.

“We hope that the NCCMH will take note of these concerns and revise the advice it gives doctors about the mental health risks of abortion.”

Monday, 27 June 2011

Various governments around the world, including in the UK, have in recent years considered moving to a system of presumed consent to organ donation, also known as an opt-out system. Under such a system, when people die doctors would be free to remove their organs, unless the person had opted-out by having made clear (e.g. in a legal document, patient register etc.) that they refuse consent to organ removal. There are significant ethical problems and dangers in such a system, which Anthony Ozimic, SPUC's communications manager, highlights in this thought-piece (video) broadcast last night on Channel Four as part of its series 4thought.tv You may like to support Anthony by leaving a comment on the webpage below the video. You can find arguments for your comment in my following blog-posts:

Sunday, 26 June 2011

Lynn Murray of SPUC's Edinburgh branch, who has a daughter with Down's Syndrome, is recommending a conference in Cambridge on 17 September, organised by the Down's Syndrome Research Foundation (DSRF) UK. The focus of the DSRF and its conference is finding a medicine to treat Down's Syndrome, instead of killing unborn children suspected of having the condition. The conference will be opened by Madame Jérôme Lejeune, wife of the late Professor Jérôme Lejeune, who was a President of SPUC. He discovered the cause of Down's Syndrome and devoted his life to research into a cure for the condition. In 1990 the SPUC Educational Research Trust set up the Anna Fund to fund Professor Lejeune's research. In 1996 the Anna Fund opened the first Lejeune clinic in London. Also addressing the conference will be Dr Henri Blehaut, the research director of the Fondation Jerome Lejeune, which also continues the great professor's work.

At this year's International Youth Pro-Life Conference, Lynn spoke powerfully from both personal experience and research knowledge about the challenge that Down's Syndrome poses to society. That challenge is to put aside common preconceptions about disability and embrace the inestimable value of disabled people. Lynn supports strongly the DSRF's work and so I very glad to promote its conference - see its website for full details.

Saturday, 25 June 2011

SPUC is disturbed by a report that the Department of Health is in discussions with Labour MP Frank Field about how to change the law on counselling for women considering abortion.

An exclusive report in yesterday's Liverpool Daily Post revealed that Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, has invited Mr Field to talk to departmental officials about changing the law through regulations, rather than via amendments to primary legislation. Mr Field and Nadine Dorries MP have tabled amendments to the government's Health and Social Care Bill (see SPUC's comment on those amendments)

"We are extremely disturbed at this news. We said when Mr Field and Mrs Dorries first announced their initiative that their efforts to try to stop women being exploited by pro-abortion counsellors could be twisted to have the opposite effect by Department of Health regulations. This is what we suspect is happening here. The high abortion rate in this country is driven by senior officials in the Department of Health who are strongly committed to abortion on demand - contrary to the 1967 Abortion Act. The Department of Health has no target for reducing abortions and rejects strategies that could help to drive down the rate.

On the contrary the teenage pregnancy strategy, which was supposed to halve under-18 births by 2010, is being continued by officials. The strategy promotes abortion, and the number of abortions among under-18s in the past 10 years has grown significantly."

Thursday, 23 June 2011

I thought it would be useful to look back and highlight some of the best commentary regarding Sir Terry Pratchett's BBC documentary on assisted suicide (below in chronological order). Many thanks to all those SPUC supporters who responded to our alert calling for complaints to be made to the BBC.

"This programme will be the fifth produced by the BBC in just three years, presented by a pro-euthanasia campaigner or sympathiser, which has been specifically designed to portray taking one’s own life in a positive light."

"As a piece of shameless propaganda, Terry Pratchett’s film is brilliant. But as an analysis of the truth behind so-called ‘assisted suicide’, it is grossly misleading and unbalanced ... For me, a disabled man with multiple sclerosis, this approach is profoundly troubling ... What has been inflicted on viewers is a repellent exercise in deceit. So untrue and distorted is Sir Terry’s film that it should really be classified as fictional drama rather than documentary."

"Death itself has a certain fascination which can be fatally attractive, particularly to depressives and adolescents. If people who already have a hankering to end their own lives are exposed to pro-suicide propaganda on television, some of them are likely to commit the final act."

"This was consummate propaganda on the part of the BBC. The quick visit to a hospice, and the few words allowed to a carer there, did not remotely present the alternative case. The programme was weighted entirely on the seemingly reasonable and unanswerable notion that just as we have choice in other areas of our lives, we should have the choice to die when and how we want (and not have to pay £10,000 for the privilege)."

"[A]ssisted suicide for the severely physically disabled could so insidiously turn from being a liberating option into something more like an oppressive social obligation. I have no doubt that Terry Pratchett's campaign has good intentions; but for the very people he most means to help, they could pave the road to Hell."

"I think an opportunity has been bypassed of having a balanced programme – the thousands of people who use the hospice movement and who have a good and peaceful death, there was very little about them. This was really propaganda on one side."

"I am instinctually in favour of assisted suicide. But the programme left me feeling uncomfortable. I have no time for the religious argument. And yet, I hesitate to fully sign up for the cause – simply because I wanted to die once, and have been enormously relieved that I never did anything about it. Admittedly I was suffering mental rather than physical illness – in my case acute depression. I had been suffering agony for four years and saw no end in sight. But with hindsight it is plain to me that you can be very serious about your wanting to die, having taken all matters into account – and most of those around me thought I was absolutely in my right mind – then later discover that you very nearly made a literally fatal mistake."

Dr William Oddie,"I agree: the BBC favours ‘the right to die’. But watch out. That’s a phrase with a sinister history", Catholic Herald, 16 June 2011:

"...[w]hat Sir Terry called in a contribution to the Newsnight discussion his “right to death”. When I heard him use that phrase, however, I shuddered, for it has a sinister history: it recalls vividly the entire reasonableness of the successful campaign in Germany during the 1910s through to the 20s and 30s to convince the medical profession that “assisted dying” or “sterbehilfe” for those with an impaired “quality of life” (to use a modern expression which also has sinister historical overtones) as morally acceptable"

"That vision of [the Dignitas builiding, ] what was little more than a blue tin shed will stay with me for the rest of my life. It reminded me of a gas chamber. I felt like I was taking Rona to her execution."

"Couldn’t you see the unspoken thought – that it might be more convenient for the old and ill to be hurried into the grave – lurking behind the black-clad figure of Sir Terence Pratchett as he presented his pro-death programme at the licence-payers’ expense last week?"

Wednesday, 22 June 2011

SPUC is conducting a major campaign this summer to help keep children safe at school. The key elements of the campaign are below. When ordering from SPUC HQ, please email orders@spuc.org.uk or telephone (020) 7091 7091.

Petition

Child protection petition entitled "Give children back their childhood": I blogged about this on 6 May. This Saturday (25 June) is SPUC's National Petition Day, though the petition will continue over the summer. Please download the petition and order the accompanying petition guidelines.

Leaflets

Child protection leaflet entitled "Give children back their childhood" (mildly-phrased version): see a sample and contact SPUC HQ to order

Child protection leaflet entitled "Give children back their childhood" (strongly-phrased version): see a sample and contact SPUC HQ to order.

Briefing on sex and relationships education (SRE): comprehensive facts and arguments, of particular relevance to the ongoing discussions within government and in Parliament. Please order from SPUC HQ.

Meetings

Antonia Tully of SPUC's Safe at Schools campaign is addressing public meetings around the country, supporting local parents who want to protect their children from explicit SRE lessons in their schools. The next meeting on Wednesday 29 June - see my blog-post yesterday for full details.

Tuesday, 21 June 2011

A hardy team of walkers braved rough Yorkshire terrain and wet weather last weekend to raise money for unborn children.

Seven local SPUC supporters completed the Lyke Wake Walk, trekking 44 miles across the North Yorkshire Moors, some of the most inhospitable moorland terrain in Britain. Traditionally, the challenge is to complete the walk within 24 hours, but the team of both young and older adults completed it in 17 hours. The walk began at 3am in Osmotherly, North Yorkshire, on Saturday (18 June), and finished at Ravenscar on the Yorkshire coast at 8.10pm.

Michael Hill of Rotherham, SPUC's vice-chairman and one of the walkers, said:

"The wet weather conditions made the walk significantly more difficult. There were tears of joy and tears of pain along the way, but what made the day special was the dedication of everyone involved, not just to the work of SPUC, but for one another too."

The Lyke Wake Walk is 43 miles long, but the walkers added an extra mile to mark 44 years since the passing of the Abortion Act 1967. The money raised will be spent on SPUC's campaigns to get the truth about abortion to doctors, encourage a pro-life ethic in medicine and drive down the abortion rate. There are around 600 abortions in Britain every day.

An emergency public meeting has been called in Tower Hamlets on 29 June in response to parents' fears that local primary schools are manipulating sex education classes, resulting in parents being deprived of their legal right to withdraw their children from the classes.

Parents from at least one local school are concerned that sexually-explicit DVDs are being shown in statutory science lessons. It is illegal for parents to take their children out of national curriculum subjects, whereas they are permitted to withdraw their children from sex and relationships education (SRE).

An open letter has been sent to all state-maintained primary schools in Tower Hamlets, setting out concerns both about the content of the materials used to teach young children about sex and the manner in which schools are sidelining parents.

The letter is from four organisations who state that they are “committed to defending the rights of parents and opposing the premature sexualisation of young children through explicit SRE.”

Antonia Tully of SPUC's Safe at School campaign, one of the letters signatories, said: "We are hoping that parents with primary-age children will come to the meeting to find out what their children are being taught, their rights as parents, schools' responsibilities and the local authority's role."

SPUC has responded to just-published parliamentary answers in which Andrew Mitchell, the secretary of state for international development, said that the UK government backs so-called "family planning" to "help reduce unwanted fertility and reduce population growth" (see below).

Paul Tully, SPUC's general secretary, told the media earlier today:

"Andrew Mitchell is stuck in the era of anti-birth dinosaurs. He blames environmental degradation on poor people who have more children than he thinks they should. This kind of thinking should be consigned to the history books, along with the attitude that the poor are to blame for their own existence. The reality is that development can only happen with sufficient concentration of human resources – of people – to enable infrastructure to be built and maintained. Waste recycling, flood defences and sewage treatment are examples of systems that are beyond the means of poor, sparsely-populated areas.

Mr Mitchell claims that current levels of growth are unsustainable, but that is not the case. Populations in many western countries would already be shrinking but for immigration from poorer countries. In the developing world, an increasing number of countries have birthrates below replacement level, and all the factors affecting fertility are moving in an anti-natal direction. Factors like age at marriage, age at first child-bearing, educational levels, etc., are all tending to reduce fertility rates. Birthrates are falling everywhere, and falling faster than anyone anticipated in the 1970s.

Mr Mitchell needs to wake up to the fact that the era of the so-called population bomb is history. The danger now is that developing countries will go into premature population decline and stunt their educational, economic and cultural development.

Mr Mitchell cites the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development as grounds for promoting family planning, but ICPD said that abortion should never be promoted as a means for family planning. In its May 2011 spending review, DfID announced that it will spend nearly half a billion pounds on projects that include reproductive health which covers both abortion and contraception. DfID won’t say how much of this goes on abortion, but we know it funds lobbying, infrastructure and services for abortion. Tax payers have a right to know how DfID is spending their money, and how many babies are dying as a result."

Richard Ottaway: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will make it his policy to press his counterparts at the Rio Earth Summit preparatory meetings to (a) invest in and (b) prioritise family planning services for the purposes of population stabilisation, poverty eradication and sustainable development. [59748]

Mr Andrew Mitchell: The UK Government recognise the links between population, environmental degradation and stresses on natural resources. DFID will continue to work closely with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), which leads the British Government’s preparations for Rio2012, to ensure that critical factors in encouraging more sustainable trajectories of growth are addressed.

Meeting the need for family planning, together with wider investment in girls’ education and empowerment, will help reduce unwanted fertility and reduce population growth. DFID is committed to enabling at least 10 million more women in developing countries to use modern methods of family planning by 2015 and, in doing so, prevent more than 5 million unintended pregnancies.

Richard Ottaway: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will (a) attend the Rio Earth Summit preparatory meetings and (b) press his counterparts at such meetings to recommit to the Programme of Action on eradicating poverty and ensuring sustainable development agreed at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. [59749]

Mr Andrew Mitchell: Decisions regarding ministerial attendance at Rio2012 will be taken in due course. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has overall responsibility for coordinating the British Government's preparations for Rio2012, The Secretary of State for DEFRA will attend meetings in preparation for Rio2012.

The UK supports the Programme of Action from the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) which agreed that population and development are inextricably linked, and that empowering women, advancing gender equality, eliminating violence against women and ensuring women’s ability to control their own fertility were essential elements of development policies. We continue to seek appropriate opportunities to advance the ICPD agenda.

Saturday, 18 June 2011

Further to my blog last Thursday about the All-Ireland Rally for Life, Liam Gibson, SPUC Northern Ireland's development officer, has written the following rallying-cry for as many pro-lifers as possible to be in Dublin on Sat 2 July:

"The Rally for Life has become an annual event in the Irish pro-life calendar and a real celebration of the culture of life. With European institutions now renewing their attack on the Republic’s protection for children before birth, this year’s rally in Dublin could hardly come at a more appropriate time.

The Irish coalition government, which contains high ranking pro-abortion politicians, is under intense pressure and there is a genuine risk that it will introduce legislation to liberalise the country’s abortion laws.

In 2008 the British parliament looked set to introduce the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. The Rally for Life, in Belfast that year, provided a vital demonstration of public support for pro-life politicians. In the face of pro-life opposition Gordon Brown’s government stepped in to block attempts to extend the Act.

It almost goes without saying that if unborn children are to be safe on either side of the Irish boarder then they must be protected on both sides. Liberalisation of abortion in the Republic would not only cost lives there, it would have serious consequences for Northern Ireland. Victory for the pro-abortion lobby in Ireland would also be disastrous for recognition of the right to life of unborn children in Europe. That’s why the pro-life movement in Northern Ireland, and in Scotland, England and Wales, should make every effort to support the Rally for Life in Dublin on July 2."

Friday, 17 June 2011

Ann Farmer, a stalwart pro-life author, has kindly sent me a letter (below) which she sent to the editor of The Telegraph in response to a column by Vicki Woods. The Telegraph didn't publish her letter, which is very sad as it is a powerful and insightful analysis of the dangers of legalising assisted suicide. Ann wrote:

Dear Sir,

Vicki Woods reveals that she and her husband have argued about which of them should assist the other to commit suicide, and which should "face Plod afterwards" should the occasion arise, maintaining: "We have the right to live as we want - why not the right to die as we want?" ('If I decide to end it all, I'll do it my way', Telegraph, June 11, 2011). But the fact is we don't have the unlimited right to live as we want, and this includes the taking of our own lives and the lives of others. What we do affects other people, and should our society, as she appears to desire, accept the 'right' of people to kill themselves or their close relatives, such 'private' decisions will affect other people. Not only will we create an atmosphere under which vulnerable people will be driven to commit suicide because they feel a burden on their closest relatives, but there will be cases where the closest relatives will be placed under pressure to accept someone's decision to commit suicide even though they disagree, and will be made to feel guilty for prolonging the life of someone who wishes to exercise a private choice instead of considering care options. It is well known that suicide is 'catching' and that the bereaved will suffer deep emotional trauma and may themselves decide to take their own lives - indeed, some suicide campaigners have advocated that bereaved relatives should also be helped to commit suicide. And if the 'right' to suicide should be made legal, all sorts of 'services' will no doubt spring up to faciliate and profit from suicide - and why not? What appears at first sight to be a private matter is in fact a matter of great public interest; that is why we have laws against it. The disastrous effects of our recent 'softening up' of the law is demonstrated by Vicki Woods' call for assisted suicide "at a time of your own choosing. By someone you know and love. In a nice place like your own home, instead of that creepy Swiss set-up, Dignitas." I venture to suggest that it would be even more creepy should one's nearest and dearest turn from caring to killing, either because do not wish to care or because they are made to feel uncaring by not acquiescing in the decision. Vicki Woods regrets the fact that she returned her late mother's supply of morphine to the clinic: "I should have kept them in the top cupboard, against the day"; the future is unpredictable but one thing can be predicted with a certain amount of confidence: if the law changes as she would wish, and she should change her mind about being killed, it may be too late for regrets.

John Smeaton

About Me

I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 39 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London.

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to SPUC's staff, supporters and advisers for their help to me in researching, writing and producing this blog.

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